Magical power of words

On Saturday, I got a chance to attend a lecture of a Pakistani Islamic scholar, Maulana Tariq Jameel, at Ashrafia University in Lahore. Maulana has been repeatedly maligned on social media by some of his critics through posting selected excerpts from his sermons without letting the public know about an overall theme of his sermons.

By doing this, Maulana is able to keep the pluralistic fabric of Islam alive in his preaching. Yesterday’s sermon was not different from all the recorded sermons I had watched of Maulana’s but it was different in the sense that I had been listening to his live sermon for the first time. In his sermon, Maulana highlighted how to treat women in Islam and lamented about how Muslims have relegated the status of women in society to the bottom of the status quo.

His whole sermon revolved around how we as Muslims, have lost an essence of Islam by adhering solely to religious rituals and forgetting the teachings of the Quran that are reflective of Prophet Muhammad’s life. That was an embodiment of love and an epitome of the peak of human character.

The takeaway lesson in the whole sermon was that “we don’t know Allah and the Prophet’s life, believe me!”. According to him, those who are guiding the masses about Islam hardly understand the Quran beyond translation and have failed to highlight the essence of Islam through the Prophet’s life. According to him, the main reason for that is that we have a literal understanding of Islamic discourse and have no critical understanding of its essence. He underlined the need for understanding the text of the Quran in letter and spirit and impressed upon those sitting at the mosques’ pulpit that they should preach Islam through sharing examples of love in the Prophet’s life instead of solely promoting a puritanical version of Islam and building the whole edifice of Islam solely on the following rituals of Islam.

I personally think that the essence of education lies in equipping students with good language skills. A good grip over language prompts one to read between the lines and write critically

The problem — which Maulana highlighted is that we are bad at reading between the lines — and cannot be solely be confined to the religious decay of Muslim society. This problem has been reverberating in every sphere of our life- be it social, political, economic and psychological.

Not only in religious seminaries — where graduates are sent into the market without being equipped with critical thinking skills — our academic institutes have also failed in this regard. Students’ understanding of texts of their subjects is poorly informed and they hardly can go beyond its literal understanding. This palpable apathy among students about what is being taught has cost us a lot in almost every sphere of life.

The reason for poor understanding of texts can be solely apportioned to a poor culture of reading and writing in our academia. Because knowledge is disseminated in a less challenging manner, students and teachers hardly feel the need to understand texts in their true essence. The passing criteria in our academia does not require critical thinking, reading or writing. Reproducing what one has learned defines grades in our academia and, unfortunately, only grades can assure the status of excellence with respect to one’s aptitude for any subject. Higher grades yield more opportunities and more chances of getting allocated in lucrative professions.

The plague in every sphere that our whole society is suffering from does not seem to fade away until the agents of change- the academics — develop a culture of critical thinking, reading and writing. If the plague persists, popular thinking in the society regarding any issue will be reinforced by those so-called agents of change in academia.

Words have magical power if they are understood in their essence. A proper understanding of words cannot only connect one with one’s soul, but also help one to get connected with other souls. To put it in Pakistan’s iron lady and famous artist Muneeba Mazari’s words “Words can make you, break you. They can heal your soul.” We are all humans and we all might have different experiences, but one thing is for sure that we all feel the same and we can relate to one another because of the common feelings we normally pass through. I personally think it is because of lack of words or literal understanding of words that we create divisions among ourselves and makes us judgmental about one another.

As a society marred by various plagues, our salvation, lies in grooming people who are good with words. We need disseminators of knowledge both in our religious seminaries and academic institutes who can through interpretation of texts in any discourse, can not only help us connect as Muslims but can also go for innovative ventures after reading the existing discourses. There is a huge responsibility on the shoulders of those who disseminate knowledge in our society — whether they are sitting on a mosque’s pulpit or standing behind the podium in classes. I personally think that the essence of education lies in equipping students with good language skills. A good grip over language prompts one to read between the lines and write critically. If our academics succeed in equipping students with good reading and writing skills, they can consider their part in improving society done.

The writer is an MPhil scholar studying International Relations at Department of Political Science at University of the Punjab, Lahore. He can be reached at uinam39@gmail.com, https://www.facebook.com/inamullah.marwat.56